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Understanding the factors that influence the decisions made by victims of domestic violence and abuse has, for some time, been a key area of focus for professionals working within the Criminal Justice System and academic researchers alike. Using female victims’ reported decision-making around incidences of domestic violence and abuse as an illustrative case study, this paper analyses N=120 Police Victim Statements, collected by officers in one force in Northwest England. The usefulness of a PVS as a form of qualitative research data to better understand domestic violence and abuse is examined by means of a deductive content analysis. Drawing on the literature addressing decision-making by victims in domestic violence and abuse, a simple coding frame was developed to provide a structure for the initial investigation of the Police Victim Statements to examine the type of data contained in these legal documents. Findings suggest that, whilst they have some limitations, PVSs are a valuable and currently under-utilised form of qualitative data to research and understand victim decision-making in domestic violence and abuse.

This qualitative study explores child-to-parent violence (CPV) in the United Kingdom based on the accounts of adolescents who exhibit this type of family violence. The key areas of interest concern the familial relationships and contexts within which adolescents are embedded, and their perceptions about their emotional states and how these interplay with CPV. Eight participants were recruited in total from a community sample from two different intervention programs aiming to tackle CPV in England. Methods included participant-observation, face-to-face interviews, and handwritten interviews; all data were analyzed thematically. Results suggest that CPV is linked with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), unsatisfactory relationships with parents, perceived emotional rejection from parents, and emotional dysregulation in young people. In this study, violent behavior was directed not only against mothers but in all cases against siblings and stepfathers. The findings address the complexity of the subject and the need for tailored, evidence-based interventions in the field of CPV.

Gendered models of abuse describe intimate partner violence (IPV) as unilaterally perpetrated by dominant, aggressive men towards vulnerable women. This unidirectional conceptualization has contributed to a “domestic violence stereotype” which, alongside broader attitudes regarding gender, influences attitudes towards ‘non-typical’ victim and perpetrator groups (e.g., male victims, female perpetrators, those within same-sex relationships), and has significant outcomes for help-seeking decision-making, as well as responses from service providers and the criminal justice system. Whilst prevalence data and research suggest bidirectional violence is in fact the most common pattern (e.g., see Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Misra, Selwyn, & Rohling, 2012), there is still little known about how the stereotypes and attitudes described above manifest in scenarios where both parties occupy ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ labels. The present pilot study therefore asked 178 undergraduate students to allocate ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ labels, and make judgments of severity, resolution and justice outcomes, towards hypothetical opposite-sex IPV scenarios varying on the proportion of abuse perpetrated by each party, and type of violence. Results showed that participants were reluctant to label men as ‘victims’, and women as ‘perpetrators’, across scenarios. They were also less likely to recommend that the man should call the police. These exploratory results therefore suggest that powerful stereotypes about IPV and gender may serve to influence perceptions of bidirectional violence and point to a need to study this issue in more detail in order to elucidate the most appropriate way to begin to address these issues.

One of the potential avenues for former professional football players to pursue their career is to become a head coach of a club's first team. An important question is how to best prepare for such a reconversion. This letter is the first in the academic literature quantifying the association between success as a professional head coach and prior experience of former professional players as a youth coach, player-coach, head coach at a lower division, assistant coach, in other staff positions and in club management positions. Our regression analyses, based on unique coach career data, show a significant positive association for the jobs of assistant or youth coach.

University student wellbeing is increasingly seen as a concern, and as demands on university staff time for research, teaching, leadership and pastoral support also increase, this is mirrored in concerns about staff wellbeing. Dominant sectoral narratives frame student and staff wellbeing as oppositional, with initiatives to support student wellbeing positioned as creating additional practical and emotional demands on staff time and resources. \ud \ud Using a large qualitative dataset collected in the UK, including staff and students, this paper argues that this does not have to be the case. Instead, there is a need to look beyond the provision of reactive services or isolated individual interventions, to proactively and cohesively embed cultural and structural change across the whole institution to support positive wellbeing outcomes for the whole university community. \ud \ud We report on the intrinsic interconnection between staff and student wellbeing; the importance of formal institutional policies in supporting or impeding staff and student wellbeing; access to training interventions to support staff and student wellbeing as a practical manifestation of these policies; and the impact of workplace culture and the centrality of compassion and community. The paper finds that it is important that institutions within higher education acknowledge and respond proactively to both staff and student wellbeing issues. To do so, institutions should seek to foster a sustainable and effective academic environment with a whole university approach.

Over the last 50 years, there has developed a wealth of literature that has explored the experiences of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). This has demonstrated the adverse impact IPV has, including the impact on both female (e.g., Sarkar. 2008), and male victims (e.g., Próspero, 2007) and those within the LGBTQ+ community (e.g., Reuter et al., 2018). Over these 50 years, there has also been the development of key legislation, policy, and services to support these victims and reduce the prevalence of IPV. A comprehensive review of victim services was provided by Eckhardt and colleagues in 2013 (Eckhardt et al., 2013) as part of the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project. The aim of the current paper is to expand on and update this review with an international focus, drawing on both the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (US). Specifically, we discuss current legislation and policy and how this informs practice, what services and resources are available for victims in the two countries, and what interventions are available and what we know of their effectiveness. A final aim is to explore one of Eckahrdt et al.’s specific recommendations about what exists to support “underserved” populations, such as men and those in the LGBTQ+ community.

Introduction In 2D ultrasound, the lens of the fetal eye can be distinguished as white circles within the hypoechoic eyeball, and eye movements can be visualized from about 15 weeks' gestation. It has been shown that from 31 weeks gestational age the fetal sensory system is capable of directed vision if enough light is available. Methods We have developed a light source for delivering visual stimuli to be seen by the fetal eye, using laser dot diodes emitting at 650 nm. The 2D component of 94 fetal ultrasound scans (mean gestational age 240 days), where the light stimulus was presented, was coded to determine whether the eyes moved in response to the stimuli independent of any head movement. Results The light stimulus significantly provoked head and eye movements, but after the light was withdrawn the head stopped moving, yet the eyes continued to move. Conclusion This provides evidence for visual attention mechanisms that can be controlled through eye movements that are independent of head movements prior to birth., We have developed a light source for delivering visual stimuli to be seen by the fetal eye, and the 2D component of 94 fetal scans was coded to determine whether the eyes moved in response to the stimuli independent of any head movement. The light stimulus significantly provoked head and eye movements, but after the light was withdrawn the head stopped moving, yet the eyes continued to move. This provides evidence for visual attention mechanisms that can be controlled through eye movements that are independent of head movements prior to birth.

Whilst research has explored intimate partner violence (IPV) as a social issue across the last 50 years, it is only over the last decade there has been an increase in investigating experiences of male victims. We now understand more about their experiences of physical violence, coercive control, and the impact of this victimization on both physical and mental health, however this research has typically worked with “younger” samples and there is still a dearth of literature exploring experiences of older men. The aim of the current study was to explore the experiences of men over 60 extracted from a wider data set that explored men’s experience of IPV (see Author, 2019a). The narratives of eight men were analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and three master themes were extracted: their experiences of abuse behaviours, unique experiences of older men, and the impact of the abuse. Men described experiences of abuse that were comparable to that seen within younger men’s narratives, but they also described age-specific experiences related to the longevity of the relationships, manipulation of finances, and exploitation of age-related cognitive decline. The results are discussed in line with the need for further research, and also a practice-based need to ensure service responses are tailored to the victim groups they are working with and moving away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Welcome to the ninth issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science(APASS). The aim of APASS is to provide a forum for post-graduate students to publish their work; this may be primary or secondary research, opinions piece or commentaries.

Research investigating the experiences of the deaf and hard of hearing population has often found that people have negative experiences, such as social isolation, communication and employment barriers, and barriers to accessing health care due to their deafness. The current\ud study aimed to investigate individual experiences and perceptions of what it means to be deaf or hard of hearing.

Activists and leaders in the far-right in the UK and Europe are often assumed to be working class white men (Cockburn, 2007). While this is reasonably accurate of the majority, the assumption has led to poor understanding of the active minority of women involved in the leadership and support of these movements.

The video gaming community consists of 1.8 billion gamers, 55% are male and 45% are female, suggesting a male majority in the gaming sector (Statista 2019). The aims of the current study were to; (a) allow women to have their say about their experiences, (b) to improve women’s gaming experiences (c) to improve the way the community perceive female gamers and lastly (d) to fill the gap in research.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) was routinely ignored before the 1970s unless it escalated to homicide, during a time that has now been labelled the “age of denial” (Dutton, 2006; p16). However, when Erin Pizzey opened the first women’s shelter in 1971, it started a movement of research that aimed to understand violence against women, and was a key moment in the development of the gendered model of IPV. This model attributes the causes of IPV to be related to gender inequality, patriarchy and male privilege, and describes it a as a gender-based violence. As a model, this became the dominant narrative within research and practice at the time; there exists now a wealth of research within an alternative body of work that suggests it is not fit for purpose, and ignores evidence of women’s violence, bidirectional abuse and other risk factors for IPV. Yet despite this evidence, it remains the most influential model with IPV practice informing policy, and interventions for both perpetrators and victims. By remaining as the dominant approach to addressing IPV, it is unsuccessful in providing for the treatment needs of those involved with the criminal justice system. It fails to tackle the systemic nature of IPV by ignoring its multifarious causes (including social, developmental and intergenerational origins), and does not recognise the heterogeneity of perpetrator and victim groups (see Bates, Grahan-Kevan, Bolam & Thornton, 2017 for further discussion). Not only does it not provide viable interventions for violent women, and male victims, but it also attempts to hold abusive men accountable through a confrontational process of shaming, which further fails to provide motivation for behaviour change.

Objective: Research has demonstrated, in western nations, men and women are both perpetrators and victims of intimate partner violence. However, to the best of our knowledge, IPV and the Dark Tetrad (Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and subclinical sadism) have not been included in this research fully.\ud \ud Methods: We investigated how these dark personalities influenced the perpetration of intimate partner violence in a cross-cultural study between Sweden and the United Kingdom through surveys with university students. We furthermore compared IPV perpetration with same-sex aggression of a non-romantic partner to explore sex- and aggression-specific effects.\ud \ud Results: In a sample of 342 participants, our main findings were: (1) the only significant difference in IPV perpetration was women were more verbally aggressive; (2) men reported more verbal and physical same-sex aggression of a non-romantic partner; (3) men scored higher on all the Dark Tetrad personalities regardless of culture, while the Swedish sample scored significantly higher on subclinical narcissism and sadism; (4) the Dark Tetrad and aggression perpetration were significantly correlated; (5) different Dark Tetrad personalities predicted different forms of aggression perpetration with some gender differences; and (6) being high on subclinical psychopathy predicted most types of aggression regardless of target. \ud \ud Implications: Our study highlights that dark personalities engage in particular types of aggression, which helps to determine how and when distinctive personalities aggress for potential interventions.

Although there have been great advances in understanding radiological expertise, in particular the type of errors made, there is still a limited understanding of the underlying processes that are involved in accurate medical image perception and to date the medical image perception and vision science literatures have largely developed separately. In this Research Topic, therefore, we set out six clear aims, and despite only having four accepted papers, because they have taken four distinct approaches to the Topic we have met most of the aims.

In view of recent changes in the higher education sector, such as increased tuition fees, a greater focus has been placed on widening participation initiatives and monitoring student satisfaction. The aims of the current study were twofold: (1) to explore whether pre-entry programmes foster successful transition to higher education, and (2) to examine longitudinally the factors associated with course satisfaction. Eighty-eight first-year psychology students completed a questionnaire measuring academic self-efficacy, social identity and student satisfaction at the start (Time 1, November 2015) and end (Time 2, March 2016) of the academic year. Findings indicated that students who participated in a pre-entry programme reported higher academic self-efficacy and satisfaction compared to typical route students. Moreover, academic self-efficacy predicted student satisfaction at the start of the academic year, whereas in-group affect (a facet of social identity) predicted this at the end of the academic year. The current findings indicate that pre-entry programmes may have a positive impact on students’ sense of academic self-efficacy. On a more general level, the findings also suggest that academic self-efficacy and social identity may be key indicators of student satisfaction. This highlights the complexities of the concept of ‘student satisfaction’, and demonstrates the utility of examining multiple factors relating to student satisfaction across different time points.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has received increasing attention over recent years, both in the media and in research (Randle & Graham, 2011). IPV can be an attempt to have power and control over a partner in an intimate relationship (Bowen, 2009), and its effects are far reaching (Cho & Wilke, 2010). The majority of research has investigated male perpetrators with the literature on female perpetrators being somewhat limited (Carney, Buttell & Dutton, 2007). Criminal justice agencies have largely been educated about male perpetrators of IPV (Henning & Feder, 2004), and as a result it is unclear whether treatment options for female perpetrators are effective. This systematic review investigated the effectiveness of the current treatment options for female perpetrators of IPV and the characteristics of this specialist population. This review revealed that there is not enough research on female perpetrators of IPV. The results indicate the effectiveness of treatment programs for female offenders of IPV is varied at best. It was also revealed that female perpetrators tend to have some similarities to their male counterparts, but there were also differences. Implications for future research and the development of treatment programs for partner aggressive women are discussed.

Childhood onset epilepsy is associated with disrupted developmental integration of sensorimotor and cognitive functions that contribute to persistent neurobehavioural comorbidities. The role of epilepsy and its treatment on the development of functional integration of motor and cognitive domains is unclear. Oculomotor tasks can probe neurophysiological and neurocognitive mechanisms vulnerable to developmental disruptions by epilepsy-related factors. The study involved 26 patients and 48 typically developing children aged 8–18 years old who performed a prosaccade and an antisaccade task. Analyses compared medicated chronic epilepsy patients and unmedicated controlled epilepsy patients to healthy control children on saccade latency, accuracy and dynamics, errors and correction rate, and express saccades. Patients with medicated chronic epilepsy had impaired and more variable processing speed, reduced accuracy, increased peak velocity and a greater number of inhibitory errors, younger unmedicated patients also showed deficits in error monitoring. Deficits were related to reported behavioural problems in patients. Epilepsy factors were significant predictors of oculomotor functions. An earlier age at onset predicted reduced latency of prosaccades and increased express saccades, and the typical relationship between express saccades and inhibitory errors was absent in chronic patients, indicating a persistent reduction in tonic cortical inhibition and aberrant cortical connectivity. In contrast, onset in later childhood predicted altered antisaccade dynamics indicating disrupted neurotransmission in frontoparietal and oculomotor networks with greater demand on inhibitory control. The observed saccadic abnormalities are consistent with a dysmaturation of subcortical-cortical functional connectivity and aberrant neurotransmission. Eye movements could be used to monitor the impact of epilepsy on neurocognitive development and help assess the risk for poor neurobehavioural outcomes.

Background: Despite strong evidence regarding the beneficial effects of intra-dialytic exercise in the end stage renal disease population, the number of ESRD patients performing intra-dialytic exercise is low, and the compliance rates to exercise regimes remain poor. Many dialysis providers struggle to incorporate exercise into the routine treatment of the patients, with most renal units not including it at all (Bennett, et al., 2010), and many of the barriers of integration are yet to be revealed.\ud \ud Objective: Some barriers ESRD patients face with regards to exercising have been revealed in the two published studies available examining exercise and the European dialysis patient population as of the time of writing (Heiwe and Tollin, 2012; Fiaccadori, et al., 2014). Currently, there are no studies within the U.K determining whether incorporating exercise into the routine treatment of ESRD patients within our health service proves to be a smooth process, or problematic. Therefore, two areas need exploring: 1) how smooth is the integration of intra-dialytic exercise in the U.K, and 2) what are the staff opinions of exercise integration? \ud \ud Method: Following institutional ethical approval, an interpretative phenomological analysis study of semi-structured interviews with a small sample (N = 3) of nursing and medical staff from a dialysis unit in the North West of England was carried out. Discussed were experiences of integrating intra-dialytic exercise into the patients’ care schemes. All participants were practicing in the North West of England at the time of writing, and had been actively involved in the implementation of intra-dialytic cycling.\ud \ud Results: Three core superordinate themes were revealed, including “Quality of life increases for patients who exercise, but exercise intervention is difficult to integrate”; “An external exercise facilitator makes the exercise integration process run smoother and more effectively, and exercise uptake is increased”; “Many members of the medical staff still consider exercise as a low priority, even after seeing the benefits of exercise intervention”\ud \ud Conclusion: The results suggest that the attendance of an external exercise facilitator would not only make exercise integration run smoother, but resolve many if not all of the barriers reported by participants within the unit. All participants were in favour of the attendance of an exercise specialist to the unit.

Background: The UK’s public ultrasound departments have been understaffed for some years (Waring et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2018). This short-staffing is noted have a range of detrimental outcomes for patients, departmental managers and working sonographers alike (Miller et al., 2018; Bolton and Cox, 2015; Migration Advisory Committee, 2013). While ultrasound courses have traditionally recruited from a pool of general radiography graduates, a current shortage of the latter is compounding the overall problem (Waring et al., 2018). Consequently, new direct-entry programmes have been advocated (Society and College of Radiographers, 2013). This presentation reports findings from an evaluation of one of the UK’s first postgraduate direct-entry ultrasound programmes, exploring the perspectives of the clinical leads of the departments within which participating students were placed.\ud \ud Methods: A thematic analysis informed by a Straussian model of Grounded Theory was employed (Sloane and Miller, 2017); semi-structured interviews with N=6 participating clinical leads were conducted at the end of the first and the second year of the programme.\ud \ud Results: Five global themes emerged: (a) The anticipated extra work required to clinically mentor students with no front-line healthcare experience; (b) The ‘soft skills’ (chiefly communication) of students with no prior clinical background; (c) Student management of clinical objectives; (d) Rapid student adaptation to context; (e) Financial benefits of the direct-entry postgraduate model.\ud \ud Conclusions: The anxieties of participants regarding (a) were rapidly quashed, while those around (b) were reported to have taken a little longer to fully address. While the equation between clinical objectives and academic work was an occasional ongoing concern, the rapidity with which the students adapted was reported to have given the participants great confidence in the selection process and the programmatic model itself.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to discover the issues and problems that diagnostic imaging professionals encounter when imaging bariatric patients. \ud \ud Method: A qualitative methodological approach was utilised which involved interviewing 8 clinical radiographers with experience ranging from 5 to 35 years. Five of the participants were active reporting radiographers. The subjects were involved in both the acquisition and interpretation of plain radiographic images. The interviews were analysed via Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis which generated a series of key themes which highlighted significant challenges faced by imaging staff when imaging the bariatric patient. \ud \ud Outcomes: Four superordinate themes were identified which were: Communication issues, practical problems associated with image acquisition, technical difficulties related to equipment and issues related to effective diagnosis. \ud \ud Discussion: The paper discusses the implications of the results for education, further research and the dissemination of best practice. Issues related to suboptimal image quality, embarrassment issues for both patients and staff and challenges related to safe manual handling.\ud \ud Conclusion: The author will present a series of recommendations e.g. the dissemination of good practice and identify areas of further research such as the need to consult patients in relation to the most appropriate method of discussing potentially sensitive or embarrassing issues related to the practical conduct of imaging procedures.

Background: The findings reported in this presentation emerge from a broader project investigating the future of Ultrasound education in the UK. Specifically addressed herein is the way in which the employers of prospective first-post sonographers assembled the attributes and aptitudes that would constitute an “ideal” person for such a role.\ud \ud Method: In line with the conventional methods of Straussian Grounded Theory, N=20 Ultrasound Department leads in the North West of England, working within NHS Trusts (N=17) and independent provision (N=3), were interviewed. All interviews were semi-structured, conducted and recorded by telephone and transcribed verbatim. \ud \ud Results: Participants cited “acquired” capacities such as advanced communication skills, good time management and the ability to work autonomously as essential in a first post-sonographer. They also argued that certain “inherent” personality traits should be sought out as part of a selection process; these attributes included patience, amicability, empathy, caring and a tendency towards perfectionism. Although academic aptitude was deemed important, the ability to be non-judgmental was deemed more so. \ud \ud Conclusion: In discussing the ideal attributes of a workplace sonographer, it became clear that the participants had a clear sense of which were desirable and undesirable. However, and in a more novel vein, it was equally clear that they also held strong and relatively consistent views on which kinds of personal attribute were static (i.e. immanent qualities of a prospective employee) and which were malleable (i.e. could be altered/improved with on-the-job training). This, it is contended, has significant import for educators and trainees alike.

Successful skill execution in many forms of sport-related task is demonstrably premised (to a great degree) upon an individual’s ability to evaluate an inherently uncertain context and make ‘pressurised decisions’ therein. In a moment-by-moment manner, players, officials and coaches make high-stakes judgements on the likely outcomes of various prospective courses of action, judgements which are themselves premised on practical assessments of what is happening at that time, and what has happened previously. Over the last forty years, a steadily expanding corpus of social cognitive research has documented at length how, when performing everyday reasoning tasks on-the-fly, individuals rarely (if ever) attempt – or indeed have the option of attempting – a comprehensive retrieval and examination of all potentially domain-relevant resources from social memory. More commonly, metacognitive ‘short-cutting’ strategies – judgemental heuristics – are employed to expedite these tasks. In terms of reasoning under conditions of contextual uncertainty, the most robustly demonstrated of these is the availability heuristic. First identified in a series of experimental studies in the early 1970s by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1973; 1974), this heuristic, in its most basic terms, describes the manner in which situated estimations of frequency or probability tend to be inducted from the germane information most cognitively salient to an individual, i.e. this order of judgement task is primarily informed by the task-relevant examples that can be easily recalled. This paper outlines an empirical study of such ‘snap judgements’ in sport, with particular focus on the operations and impacts of the availability heuristic. Drawing upon the video-based infraction detection method devised by MacMahon, Starkes, and Deakin (2007), the empirical focus of the study falls upon the judgements made by football fans during the ostensibly ‘non-participatory’ activity of watching sport on television. The central thesis herein is that if heuristic reasoning can be demonstrated to influence evaluation of events at this primordial site of sporting involvement, then the case for its investigation at all levels – and in all fields - of sporting activity will be substantially advanced.

Domestic violence is a social issue that is controversial and politically charged. Unlike many other academic and practitioner based areas there is a lack of discourse meaning current interventions are often not informed by a scientific evidence base. The aim of the current study was to review the current provision of domestic violence perpetrator programmes (DVPP) within the UK. This research was part of a worldwide review into DVPP provision with each team focusing on specific geographical areas. The objective of the current review was to address the following key research question: what are the characteristics of DVPP within the UK? This included reviewing the population they serve (e.g. male or female; age range), source referral (e.g. court-mandated, voluntary/self-referred) and the program characteristics (e.g. length of program, number of sessions, modality, curriculum informing the program). Questionnaires were sent to all known organisations delivering perpetrator programme which included prison, probation, and charities. This was supplemented with a review of the available literature on programmes where available. Findings are discussed in line with the importance of research informed and evidence based practice. Furthermore, we seek to highlight the importance of the communication between researcher and practitioners, establishing a more collaborative approach on this issue can inform better provision for perpetrators.

It has been well established across the spectrum of allied healthcare literature that newly qualified practitioners, fresh from university education, often feel unprepared for their early experiences of managing patients with dementia (Baillie, Cox and Merritt, 2012; Baillie, Merritt and Cox, 2012). Moreover, this situation can have unfortunate knock-on effects regarding practitioner confidence. As Miller, Booth and Spacey (2017) observe, however, such literature rarely goes beyond proposing that ‘more education’ is the solution. Rarely unpacked is what content this education should contain at undergraduate level, and how it should be integrated into extant curricula in order to best benefit graduates in their future clinical work. This exploratory study reports findings emergent of N=6 detailed interviews with final year Diagnostic Radiography students, at the time placed in a variety of hospitals in the North West of England. Employing an analytic approach based in the Straussian model of Grounded Theory (Sloane and Miller, 2017), four global issues were identified:\ud 1. Education around the differentiated forms of dementia should be provided before any student encounters a pertinent patient on placement. \ud 2. Direct education about best practice in communicating with patients with dementia is essential at the earliest possible stage.\ud 3. Bringing in dementia carers and other affected parties can help contextualise potential problems in a non-abstract way.\ud 4. The experiences of undergraduates on other healthcare programmes (particularly nursing) can help inform a student’s-eye understanding of dementia in radiography.\ud It is contended that these findings can open up important pedagogical discussions around an issue that has hitherto remained largely unarticulated in contemporary radiography curricula.

Objectives: To qualitatively explore difficulties emerging around radiographer-patient communication regarding obesity in radiographic encounters, and the situated strategies found by radiographers for handling such situations.\ud \ud Methods: Semi-structured interviews with eight experienced clinicians working in plain radiography (mean experience = 21.56 years) were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), so as to highlight the practical, nuanced and real-world experiences of these individuals regarding obesity communication. \ud \ud Results: Participants generally viewed communicating with obese patients as a potential ‘minefield’, in which both parties were likely to be embarrassed. Most reported having had negative experiences in which patients had acted with denial or outright aggression during examinations but, conversely, all reported cases in which patients had been frank and open about their obesity, and even been happy to joke about it. Equally, all participants were able to document a range of communicative strategies for effectively handling potentially difficult situations. Results further indicate that communicative problems and embarrassment for the patient only generally arise within material contexts; i.e. when equipment is inadequate or multiple exposures are necessary.\ud \ud Conclusions: Participants largely expected any interaction about obesity with a patient to be embarrassing for both parties, but their actual experience was much more varied. This indicates a more complex communicative environment than may be expected, and also a potential availability heuristic in play that requires quantitative clarification. \ud \ud Advances in knowledge: There has, to date, been no empirical investigation of obesity-related communication in everyday radiographic contexts. This paper develops a number of themes for further investigation.

Studies show that the use of imagery can be effective (Holmes & Collins, 2001, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13, 60–83) however questions remain about its use in connection to Olympic weightlifting. Previous studies have investigated the effect of imagery and the effect on strength production (Sibernagel et al., (2007), Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 21(4), 1077-81) but few studies have focused on technique. The aim of this project investigates the effect of imagery on the technique of the Olympic weightlifting movement, the clean and jerk. Ethical approval for this project was granted by the institutional ethics board. The study was conducted over four weeks and was determined to be a longitudinal study. This study was based on the experimental research design. Twenty-two experienced weightlifters categorised as lifting for 6 months or more (mean age 29.0 ± SD 6.88) participated in this study, all were familiar with the clean and jerk technique. Participants were randomly divided into two groups, control and intervention. The intervention group followed an intervention based on the Physical, environmental, task, timing, learning, emotion and perspective (PETTLEP) model of imagery as used in previous studies (Smith et al., (2008), Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79(3), 385-91) whilst the control group lifted as normal. The data was collected by The Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire (Roberts et al., 2008, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 30(2), 200–221) to assess visual, external visual and kinaesthetic imagery types. Video recordings from both sagittal and frontal plane cameras were analysed using Kinovea video analysis software. The biomechanical variables analysed included bar deviation from a central line, torso angle in relation to horizontal at the beginning of the lift, knee/ankle angle at the start of the lift and the bar trajectory/length for the duration of the lift. Pre – Post changes in imagery skill and biomechanical variables were evaluated using two-way ANOVAs. The results are currently pending. The results from this study will have implications for coaching Olympic weightlifting, helping both new and existing coaches to use effective imagery techniques with athletes in order to improve clean and jerk technique.

Background: Often drawing upon K. Anders Ericsson’s approach (Ericsson, 2007), the contemporary corpus of research into radiography expertise tends to reflect a set of broadly social-cognitive concerns, whereby the knowledge and experience acquired by a professional are the focus (Donovan and Litchfield, 2013). The Discursive Psychological (DP) approach, however, provides an alternative model; herein, how expertise is performed becomes key (Wiggins, 2017) - DP describes how actors endeavour to make their own expertise persuasively and dynamically relevant in ways tailored to the intended audience.\ud \ud Methods: Using the standard methods of DP (Miller and Richardson, 2017), N=10 classroom sessions were analysed to highlight the nuanced interpersonal ways in which experienced radiography lecturers performed their own expertise.\ud \ud Results: Findings indicate the routine use of a socio-linguistic device termed “authenticity through autobiography” in the discursive sciences (Widdicombe and Wooffitt, 1995). The lecturers, in a variety of (usually) subtle ways, recurrently drew attention to: (1) The quantity and/or quality of their professional service in radiography; (2) the quantity and/or quality of their teaching experience; and (3) the quantity and/or quality of their research outputs and activities. All were raised only in moments whereby the specific topics of discussion - or the actions of the students - could in some way be inferred to contextually challenge the lecturers’ own status as experts. Moreover, the particular autobiographical details raised always directly addressed the specific nature and implications of any challenge.\ud \ud Conclusions: The work presented draws attention to the importance of interpersonal performance in communicating information in radiography, such that it might be recognised by students as expert knowledge.

Background: A progressive shortage of qualified clinicians within the UK’s public ultrasound departments has been documented for some time (Migration Advisory Committee, 2013), as have the organisational, physical and psychological consequences for departmental managers and working sonographers themselves (Miller et al., 2018; Waring et al., 2018; Bolton and Cox, 2015). Extant strategies to enhance recruitment from traditional graduate cohorts (typically diagnostic radiography) have, to date, barely kept pace with wastage. Consequently, new direct-entry programmes have been necessitated (Society and College of Radiographers, 2013). This presentation reports findings from an evaluation of one of the UK’s first postgraduate direct entry programmes, with a particular focus on student experience within the first cohort.\ud \ud Methods: A thematic analysis informed by a Straussian model of Grounded Theory was employed (Sloane and Miller, 2017); semi-structured interviews with N=5 participating students with a variety of graduate backgrounds were conducted at the end of the first and the second year of the programme.\ud \ud Results: Five Global themes emerged: (a) The perceived and real benefits of prior undergraduate anatomical/biological education; (b) The perceived and real benefits of prior clinical experience in any field; (c) The demands of a placement-oriented programme and the importance of a clinical coordinator; (d) Balancing academic achievement with clinical objectives, and; (e) Concerns regarding HCPC registration.\ud \ud Conclusions: It was clear that many of the academic and practical worries articulated by participating students at the end of their first year had evaporated by the end of the second. Equally, adaptations were rapidly made to the demands of placement work where it was a new experience. Managing clinical objectives and lack of HCPC registration, however, remained concerns to the end.